Shaping India’s New Growth Agenda: Implications for the world

The Takshashila Institution and The Hudson Institute co-hosted a  conference on Shaping India’s New Growth Agenda: Implications for the world, at the Hyatt on 1-2 August.With the coming to power of a new government in India led by a party which projected development and growth as part of its election manifesto, both Hudson and Takshashila believed that the time is right for a discussion on how India's new approach to governance, growth and development will affect the country and the world.India’s most urgent policy priority needs to be getting India back to a high growth path. The four panels on labour, health, innovation, and trade and investment were chosen as each of these are key sectors that can either act as drivers of economic growth in the country, but a failure to reform them could also result in these sectors becoming barriers to achieving prosperity.The three questions that each of the four panels delved into were:One, what are the policy options for that the union government to undertake in the next 1-5 years to reform the sector?Two, what are the emergent global and local trends relevant for India and Indian policymakers to consider in the sector?Three, what are the global implications of policy changes and growth in India?The panelists included Prof Mukul Asher (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and the Takshashila Institution), Kenneth Weinstein (The Hudson Institute), Manish Sabharwal (Teamlease) Sharad Sharma (ISPIRT), Michael Own Moore (George Washinton University) among others. The guests included Mrs Farahnaz Ispahani (Public Policy Scholar at Princeton University), Mr Nandan Nilekani, Mrs Rohini Nilekani, Dr Rajeev Gowda (Rajya Sabha MP), Mr Ravichandar and Latha Reddy, among others.The conference was concluded by a conversation between Nitin Pai, director of the Takshashila Institution, and Ambassador Husain Haqqani, Director of Central Asia and South Asia programmes at the Hudson Institute.